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| 2008
Tinker Summer Research Updates |
The
following are updates filed by 2008 CLAS Summer Research
Grant Recipients.
Xochitl Marsilli
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"I
spent two months in Buenos Aires, the beautiful
capital city of Argentina.
I was there to start making connections with
psychoanalysts and psychiatrist and to begin
a dialog with the so called 'psy people'
about the naturalization of some of the basic
concepts about mental health. I was lucky
enough to have the support of two amazing
professors at the University of Buenos Aires
(UBA), professors Mariano Ben Plotkin and
Sergio Visacovsky, who connected me with
some of the most prominent psychoanalysts
in the city. It was a really good experience
interacting with these famous psychoanalysts
since most of them have been practicing as
psychotherapist for over 30 years, they have
published several books, and are professors
of different distinguished universities,
so the learning process was amazing. But
at the same time it was a little bit intimidating...they
were extremely busy people, with booked agendas
(our meetings were held before or around
7:30am or after 10:00pm) and I couldn't stop
thinking that they charge a lot of money
to talk to people. And there I was, an anthropologists
from Berkeley, with a voice recorder asking
questions... so I also learned that doing
fieldwork with busy professionals can be
hard.
The project was to start building up relationships
and start narrowing the questions
that I have about the 'psy world' in
Buenos Aires. So I also interviewed psychology
students, academics, and a couple of
patients. I also contacted a couple of
the most important psychoanalytical institutions:
APA (Asociación Psicoanalítica
Argentina), APdeBA (Asociación Psicoanalítica
de Buenos Aires), Escuela Lacaniana
de Buenos Aires,
etc. One of the most amazing findings was
to see how every single person that I interviewed
has a different idea about the concept of
mental health. This opens up a lot of questions
and ideas for my dissertation, so the idea
of narrowing has actually become the opposite!
People in general were very nice to me, the
food was great, but winters in Buenos Aires are not very fun, it was really
cold the whole time. Overall, this trip was very productive, I have 28 great
interviews, and I established a very strong bond with
the UBA, and became close to some of the
people who are going to be key for the
later development of my work.
Cheers!
Xochiquetzal Marsilli-Vargas"
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